1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to blade cards and more particularly relates to configurable blade cards.
2. Description of the Related Art
Blade systems are increasingly used to provide data processing services. A blade system includes a blade enclosure. The blade enclosure receives a plurality of blade cards. The blade cards typically connect to the blade enclosure through a blade enclosure connector. The blade enclosure connector may hold a blade card in place with the blade enclosure. In addition, the blade enclosure connector provides electrical communication between the blade card and the blade enclosure.
The blade enclosure may connect the blade cards to communication resources such as a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), the Internet, and the like. In addition, the blade enclosure may connect the blade cards to storage resources such as a storage area network (SAN). The blade enclosure may also provide power and cooling for the blade cards.
A blade card may be configured as a server, a storage device, a communication device, and the like. For example, a blade enclosure may include twelve blade server cards that each function as a multiprocessor server. An administrator may easily add a server to a data processing system by adding a blade server card to a blade enclosure.
A blade card may include one or more processors, a plurality of memories in various configurations, a storage device, and the like. Administrators may require a variety of blade card configurations. For example, an administrator may require both a single processor blade server card with a hard disk drive and a single processor blade server card without a hard disk drive. Unfortunately, providing a wide variety of blade server card configurations can be expensive.